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Lanz is unusually unsure of body language during the introductory talk (“Hi, Marcus!”). He smoothes his pants, feeling for the existence of his chair and does not know what to do with his hands. That can offend those who have never been in a comparable situation. Especially since Lanz will play the next half hour, also unknown, without the button on the ear and, therefore, without directing.
The setting is emphatically neutral. An empty conference room with an empty sofa facing pale curtained windows, a stained carpet under a low ceiling, probably coffee from the Massachusetts endocrinologist buffet, which had previously been hastily picked up. But then it will remain the only flaw in this encounter.
In the small introductory talk, Lanz jokes about the security of the room and Obama praises the visitor in return: “I heard you have a wonderful audience.” Lanz responds with the joke that he thinks the book is “a little short, only 1018 pages!” Obama admits that he wishes he could make it shorter.
Lanz wants to know what he will do if the former president ends up selling fewer books than his wife. In response, he immediately fires the next gag, if Obama will acknowledge the result of this recount. After this double hit at the latest, “the wonderful audience” will recognize your Lanz. And Obama finally knows who he’s dealing with.
Or you think you know. After all, that is exactly the method by which Lanz became the best conversationalist on German television. Fly low, ask soft questions, humanity, lull the visibly relaxed victim with graces that border on greasy, and then strike.
So how did Obama experience election night? Was not his presidency a revolution? What to expect from Biden And what was easier for him, getting in or out of the White House? Can you see the snipers on the rooftops?
“This is the town house”
Obama remembers, talks, talks to the German audience of Biden as an ocean liner, and when he moved he encountered various crises, the collapse of the financial system, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s too difficult and too early for Lanz: “And emotional?” I’d rather know now. How did it feel to be president of the United States all of a sudden?
Obama recalls the first night and the realization: “This is not my house, this is the people’s house, suddenly you are sleeping in a museum.” How did you explain this to your daughters? They were still young enough, Obama explains, and their rooms “shouldn’t look like Thomas Jefferson’s residence,” but more like children’s rooms.
Lanz gives Obama the opportunity to present himself as a person who suffers more from the loss of his anonymity than he would be happy for his prominence. He can also be a happy father that his years in office have been without long-term consequences for his daughters. That may sound strange, Obama muses. “I understand perfectly!”, Assures Lanz and increases the temperature.
“The United States spends so much money” on wars, he adds, a whopping “$ 500 a day.” Obama corrects with a laugh, “500 million!” But Lanz is already on his way to what may be the sore spot of this presidency. Wrap your question in wrapping paper with a compassionate bow. Hasn’t he, Obama, had “sleepless nights” because of these drone attacks? Because people died all the time.
Obama talks about the weight of his decisions and his own fallen soldiers before taking common places. Even justified wars are “always a tragedy.” He had “had sleepless nights” at one point, although he was very tired at times. At home in the study and with a button in his ear, Lanz would not have let his interlocutor get out of trouble so easily.
Instead of drones, he now turns to Donald Trump and his old fairy tale that Obama was not born in America. The former president admits that he did not take these “ridiculous accusations” seriously enough and did not expect the media to take them seriously.
At the same time as the “political circus” with Trump in the front row at the “Correspondents Dinner”, access to Osama bin Laden was being executed, Obama emphasizes, and wants to praise the Navy Seals when Lanz, fortunately, he abruptly interrupts: “And at the same time this huge social Divide your own country! “Was Trump the answer?
Obama says there were problems before Trump and there will be after him. Progressive forces mainly need “better answers” for those left in the field, those who have not benefited from globalization. So, people for whom Obama is “the Antichrist”, as Lanz intervenes: “How did you talk to Michelle about it?”
How much did you miss being able to talk like that
In the meantime, though, Obama has gotten the hang of it and is now dismissing the human question as annoying. He prefers to speak of a divided society, a fragmented media world, more atomized by social networks. There was no longer any basic agreement on the facts. What should be done on the basis of the facts is still under debate. But if the climate crisis or pandemic were questioned in principle, this discussion would be deprived of ground.
And by the way he talks like that, you realize how much you’ve missed in recent years that someone can speak like that. In coherent sentences, considering, also doubtful, empathetic, analytical and charming. How beneficial is that. And that Markus Lanz can do just that with his benevolent lurking conversation, which is less of an interview and more of a talk.
“How is it that the fact that you were surrounded by women all your life,” he wants to know in the end, shaped your character?
“For the better,” Obama says and laughs.
